


the tsunami rose that night.

by lovelyorbent



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Guilt, M/M, POV Second Person, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:31:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4115605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyorbent/pseuds/lovelyorbent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh’s face when he first sees Gipsy is brighter than sunlight, million-watt smile under golden hair, eyes lit up.  You understand. You could choke on how beautiful she is.</p><p>You could choke on how beautiful he is, too.</p><p>But you’re beginning to get used to that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tsunami rose that night.

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahaha i feel like i should say i do feel a little bad about writing this, because i totally do not at all condone incest. but before i thought about this too heavily i had written like four paragraphs of this and then it was too late i had to write the rest. the basic idea was a somewhat less... perfect relationship between them. i imagine the stigma would be a real bitch to have to carry around everywhere. this is one of the things that's been keeping me from writing bad porn.
> 
> anyway, this isn't happy. you've been warned. almost none of it is happy. if you wanted a happy becketcest fic this is a place you should not be.
> 
> title is from [saiber's stardust and sheets](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6601655-the-sea-loved-the-moon-when-she-was-supposed-to).

You are Yancy Becket.

You are eighteen.

You are sitting at a computer at work inputting numbers for the day, or that is what you are supposed to be doing, anyway.  Instead you are staring at a google search that you haven’t hit enter on yet—this elderly computer doesn’t automatically preview results.

Typed into the search bar with your shaky fingers is this: _feelings of inc_.

You have not typed the rest of the sentence.  You have not typed the rest of the word.  You think about your mother finding this search history even though she can’t because she’s dead. You think about your boss finding it even though you know how to delete history.  You think about the NSA and all the recent stories and you know they probably don’t care how you feel about your little brother, but.

You don’t hit enter.

You decide to live with it like you’ve been living with it for the last year or so. Your brother is fifteen and you are sick and disgusting because you are a self-sufficient adult and he is in your care and you sometimes look at him and want to kiss him on the mouth. You want help, but you can’t tell anyone.  And you love him and you would never hurt him, you would never do that to him, but you hate that you want to.

 _I will never touch him the way I want to_ , you promise yourself, looking in the mirror before you go to work at the factory in the morning.  The skinny boy in the ratty jeans staring back doesn’t _look_ like a predator.  And he isn’t.

You have spent the last few months trying to keep Raleigh from things that would hurt him—hunger, cold, unhappiness.  You refuse to become something from which he needs to be protected.

You are Yancy Becket. You are stronger than your worst fears.

 

You aren’t an anxious person. As far as you know, you never have been—you’ve never panicked over any of the shit that’s happened to you. You’ve grieved and you’ve been guilty and you’ve been stressed and you’ve wanted everything to stop for a while, just stop, so you could get your feet under you, but you understand that the world doesn’t work that way and so you keep moving.

You don’t panic about this any more than you panic about anything else.  You are more worried about being unable to put food on the table than you are about touching your brother, because you know that you would never dare.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t hate yourself for it a little, sometimes.  It just means you don’t really think it’ll ever be a problem between you.

 

You stop touching him the ways you used to, though.

Stop reaching for the hug. Stop kissing him on the forehead. Stop tickling him when you think he needs a laugh.  Because you trust yourself never to touch him the way you want to touch him, but you don’t trust yourself not to like touching him the ways you’re allowed to.

You don’t turn him away when he asks for those things, though.  Don’t kick him out of your room when he crawls into bed with you in the middle of the night.

You just… you let _him_ want it. So that you know it wasn’t you.

Ruffling his hair is what you do every time you want to kiss him.

That’s brotherly enough, isn’t it?

 

Being tired all the time makes you less guilty.

You pass a whole year being tired.

Your brother sleeps in your bed almost every night and you let him because you know this way he knows that you come home every day.  You aren’t leaving.  You aren’t leaving. You don’t tell him that, but you let him know other ways.

You can’t do anything but hope he believes you.

 

It’s not just that you want him, you think, it’s that your sickness is getting all tangled in with your love. You love your brother. You do.  You love him like a brother.

Just, you also want him. You love him like a lover, too. And you’re not going to do anything about it, so that’s okay.  You don’t want him _because_ he’s your brother.  You don’t want to control him.  You just want him. You don’t know how to stop. If you could, you would, but you can’t, and you don’t touch him anyway, so it’s all okay.  You can’t arrest someone for thinking about robbing a bank. Maybe Raleigh could hate you for thinking about touching him sometimes when you can’t stop yourself fast enough, but you figure, well.

Raleigh will never know, will he?

You’re sure as hell not going to tell him.  So as long as you’re strong, and you keep a handle on your personal version of fucked-up, you will never have to watch him be disgusted with you.  And you think you can live with that.

You just keep doing what you’ve been doing all your life.

Being his brother.

 

You think he watches you, sometimes.

You can’t prove anything, but you think maybe he knows something is off, or maybe it’s just he doesn’t want you to disappear when he takes his eyes off you.

Every morning before you leave for work he hugs you and every evening when you get back exhausted and he’s made dinner he kisses your cheeks just like Mom taught him, and you grin at him and ruffle his hair and say, “How was your day, kiddo?”

His smile is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever fucking seen.

 

It’s Raleigh’s sixteenth birthday and you are both a little bit tipsy on whiskey left behind by your parents, sitting on the couch to watch a horror movie on Raleigh’s beat-up laptop screen.  Your brother is curled into your side, cheek against your shoulder and hip slotted up against yours, and as the credits play, he sets down his bottle on the table and turns his face up to yours, then slides into your lap.

You don’t stop him, and he’s staring at you, and you don’t _get it_ until his gaze drops to your mouth—but instead of shoving him off you freeze, and after that moment where you don’t push him away when he’s waiting for you to, he smiles bright and happy, just the way that makes your heart squeeze every time he does it, and kisses you.

And you can’t help it—your hand tightens on his waist and you kiss him back, tasting whiskey in his mouth, which is sweet and needy pressed up against yours, his hands fisted in the front of your shirt.  He’s making breathless little encouraging noises into your mouth, humming and sighing without pulling away, and for too long you let him do it, kiss you sloppy, like he doesn’t know how.

You wonder, has he ever kissed a man before?

The thought is like being doused in cold water.

You are a man. He’s a boy.  You are his older brother.  He is drunk.  You are sick. You feel nauseous, now, push him off you.  “I can’t,” you say, and flee the room, locking your bedroom door behind you.

You don’t see the look of terror and hurt on his face.

You don’t want to.

 

Some people would maybe be happy in your place, you think.  For once in your life you can’t sleep, pacing your bedroom while Raleigh paces outside it, and some people who love their brothers the way you love yours would be overjoyed if he wanted them back.

But you, you are horrified.

Because you are his everything.  You are his guardian. You are his older brother. His best friend. You have always been so close, too close.  You wonder, _was it all those times I let him sleep in my bed_ , you wonder _did I make him want this_ , you wonder, _could he tell I wanted him, does he think he has to want me too_. You pace your room and you wonder if Raleigh even _can_ consent to you, even if he wasn’t _sixteen_ and _drunk_.

You cannot hurt him.

But you have hurt him already.

You have made him sick. He wants you.  Or he thinks he wants you.

It is your single greatest failure.  You cannot imagine worse. Violence is straightforward. Hatred and neglect are obvious. This is manipulation. This is bending him to be you.   To want you.  You would give anything, anything in the world, to not want him.

You would give more for him not to want you back.

 

You have to leave for work the next morning and Raleigh isn’t outside your door anymore, but you know that, just like you, he hasn’t slept.  You think about calling into the house, “Remember to get a ride home from school today, Rals!” but you don’t, because you’re still hoping, a little, that he managed to fall asleep.

He’s not good at sleeping by himself, though.  And you know that.

You leave anyway.

You get a call at work two hours later that he hasn’t come to school.

 

The house is empty when you get back, and you search every fucking room before you start to worry about his safety instead of just whatever’s crawling around the inside of his head. “Raleigh?” you call into the hall, hoping maybe you missed something, somewhere.  “Raleigh!”

He doesn't answer.

You put on your coat and tug your boots back on and grab two pairs of gloves in case he forgot his, and then you go out the back door, follow the fading tracks in the snow that you knew, somehow, he’d leave.  They’re filling too quickly with the new snow for your comfort, but you need to find him, so you make your way through the dark woods down the hill to the pond he fell through the frozen surface of, once, and find him lying on the ice a few feet away from the edge, looking at the sky.

“Jesus, leave a note next time,” you say, “You scared me to death, kiddo.”

He turns his face away from you, but not before you see the shine of a tear on his face in the moonlight. “Sorry,” he says, voice thick. “About everything.”

“How was your day,” you try.

He’s silent after that, and there’s something he wants that you aren’t giving him, but you don’t know what the hell it could possibly be.

You never wanted to make him feel this way.

 

Late that night he comes back to the house, wakes you by opening the door to your room and sitting on the edge of your bed, as far away from you as he can possibly be without being on the floor, a far cry from the way he usually curls up into your back.

(Is that, you wonder, what did it for him?  That you let him do that?)

“Yancy,” he says, choked, and you sit up, sober up faster than you ever do when you’re waking, but, well. You weren’t sleeping so well anyway.

“What’s up, kid?”

As if you don’t know.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, like it’s hard to get out the words, and then the dam breaks and he just keeps talking.  “I’m sorry, I was drunk, I didn't mean—I wasn’t trying to make you, I’m sorry, I knew you wouldn’t… I just couldn’t help it, Yancy, you were right there and I thought you wanted me, you were looking at me like—like I was—I’m so fucking sorry—”

You cut him off. “Shh, kiddo,” you say, and hold out your arms.  “C’mere, all right?”

You expect some hesitation, but Raleigh’s not a hesitant person just like you aren’t an anxious one, and he comes right into your arms, tucks his face in against your neck, which goes wet almost immediately with tears and snot, just like the collar of your shirt, which his hands are fisted in, just like they were last night. “’m sorry, Yance,” he says after he’s been shaking in your arms for a little while.  “I promise I’ll never—not again, I just thought—I was wrong, I promise it’ll never happen again, just—”

 _Just don’t make me leave_ , you think he is going to say, but he just breaks off the sentence.

You rub your hand over his back and think to yourself that it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. It doesn’t matter if he’s sorry or if he wants you or if you want him or how wrong any of that is, it just matters that right now, right here, your little brother is panicking in your bed at two in the morning.

His nose is still cold from being outside on the pond.

You kiss his hair and tighten your arm around his waist while your other keeps running over his spine, gentle.  “It’s okay, Raleigh,” you tell him.  “It’s okay, kiddo, don’t worry. Just take deep breaths for me, all right?  It’s going to be fine. I love you.”

“You can’t,” he says, woodenly, but starts trying to breathe slower, just like you asked, and it takes a while for you to realize he’s parroting your words from last night back at you.

“Can’t kiss you like that again, kid.  Nothing’s changed, all right?”

He’s silent except for his half-stifled sobs now, and you just keep rubbing his back, breathing soft into his hair, until he falls asleep against your chest, breath even against your neck.

You stay up all night to make sure he stays asleep, and fall asleep in Starbucks the next afternoon, running on 48 hours of wakefulness.

It’s worth it.

He smiles at you again a few weeks later, finally.

 

There’s a very small fire in the factory in early March and you suddenly find yourself with the morning free.  “Hey, kid,” you ask him, because you’re already up and dressed and you’ve already had three cups of coffee when you get the call, “How much school’ve you skipped this year?”

“You mean this calendar year, or this school year?  Because you’re going to like one of those answers a lot better than the other.”

You consider.

“Calendar year,” you decide, because you don’t want to know.

“Like, one day, maybe.”

“Think you can take another one?  I’ve got the morning off and we haven’t gone hiking in a while.”

His face lights up, grin spreading across it, and your heart does that thing it always does—hurts a little. “Call me in sick.”

“Will do.”

On the mountainside in the light of early day, his hair almost glows, sun-gold, and his eyes take on the colour of the sky.  You ruffle his hair and he shoves you into a snowbank.

You pull him down with you, and he winds up straddling you, but there’s no heat in his eyes and he doesn’t do anything but punch you in the shoulder and shove a handful of snow in your face.

You are alone again in your problem.

It’s better that way.

 

No one who hasn’t drifted understands drifting.  So, when you volunteer for Ranger training down at Kodiak because Raleigh wants it so badly he nearly vibrates with the desire, you don’t think twice about it until they start telling you about it.

Then, you worry.

You calm the worry by thinking, well, you just won’t think about it.  You’ll keep it out of the stream, somehow. You’ll—well, maybe you won’t even drift with Raleigh at all, maybe you’ll have another partner, but you think maybe that would actually be worse.  Maybe instead you will have no partner and Raleigh will have one. Maybe you will both wash out.

It doesn’t matter.

You decide to cross that bridge when you know you will have to come to it.

 

You are a man who doesn’t put down something until he’s good at it.  Not perfect, you’re not a perfectionist, but you have learned throughout your life that hard work gets results.  This is maybe all you have learned, but you have learned it.  You practice in the kwoon with the staffs, repeating the motion over and over and over again.  It’s not like an untrained fistfight.  It’s more like a swordfight out of one of those movies Mom used to like.

There are two types of talent, you think.  Natural talent and practiced talent.  You do not have the first—well, maybe you have a little of the first—but mostly you have the second.

You take Raleigh onto the mat with you and you make him practice too, because you will not pass this test alone.

Sweaty and determined, you do not think you could possibly want him more.

Then he smiles.

You ruffle his hair and choke down your ceaseless desire.

 

You pass into the final round of Ranger candidacy and you face your classmates over a mat. Raleigh is alphabetically first, Becket, R. to your Becket, Y., and you think you see a couple of maybe-matches, a couple of people who maybe could move like him.  He wins and loses in equal measures.  He does not concede points easily.  You grin every time you see him make one—he’s a scrapper, if not a brilliant cadet.  He’s your little brother.

Then they call your name, and you tap him on the shoulder with your staff as you’re walking onto the mat, grin at him, and he grins at you, and the fight begins.  You make your first tap in thirty seconds and say, “One-zero. Good luck, kid,” as you’re ducking under his return swing.

You’re good. You’re very good. You’re better than he is—you know this because you’ve beaten the people he lost to today. But he knows you, and he uses it, just like he’s supposed to, and all those maybe-matches leave your head, because _this_ is compatibility, two-zero and then one-two and then three-one and then two-three and then three-three and you’re fighting for the final hit, moving with him more than you’re moving against him and this, this is it.

Raleigh is your partner.

You abandon the patterns you practiced and sweep his feet out from under him with a move that no one ever taught you, four-three, and win the fight.  He is your brother and he is going to be your drift partner and you bend down to help him off the mat and he flips you over his shoulder again, whispers, “Four-four,” into your ear as he helps you up even though that totally doesn’t count.

You pull his head in and noogie him and try so hard not to kiss him it almost makes it hard to think.

 

You do not realize until you have taken him out for drinks in town and bought him things he can’t buy himself what this means.  That you will drift.  That he’s going to see how tonight you’re looking at his liquor-flushed cheeks and thinking of the night he turned sixteen and how sweet he was all curled up in your lap, kissing you like you could help him breathe.  That you are helping him home and into his bed but you are thinking about taking him to yours even though you would never, never do that.

He hasn’t asked to share a bed with you once since the two of you got here.  You have been trying not to be disappointed about that. Tonight you wonder when it stopped being your favour to him and started being his to you.

 

You look up forums online for people like you.  You have no intention of posting, you just need to know if the way it makes you feel is something you’re ever going to get used to.

The problem is, even when you find people who want their brothers the way you want yours, they are not like you.  They are not guilty about it when they think too hard.  You suppose probably the guilty ones don’t post.  It sickens you a little to think that without the fact that you’re going to have to drift with your brother in a little while maybe you might have learned to be shameless too.

You feel alone.

You hope you can hide this from the Drift.

 

You wake up hard from a dream about slipping into the shower with Raleigh and wrapping your arms around his water-slick waist, kissing down his neck and rolling your hips lazily up against him.  You sober up fast, rolling onto your side to let your leg under the covers hide the tent in your boxers, and look around for him, but he’s in the shower.

You can imagine perfectly how he looks.  You get a little harder.

You hate yourself for how much you want him, now you know he’s going to see it.

 

You start drifting, and you learn how the Drift works.

You learn that Raleigh used to hide good night notes for you in the house after Mom died, under the assumption that he’d be asleep when you got home from work, only he never was and you never found a single one.  You learn that the reason he always sleeps shirtless is that you’ve been keeping the room too hot for him.

(You turn the temperature down and hope he starts wearing shirts.  But he doesn’t.)

You learn a lot of little things you never noticed.

You also learn nothing ever hides from the wind tunnel of memories and emotions forever.

You already know Raleigh used to want you, years ago, but you think he must have gotten over it, a stupid teenage whim, because you haven’t seen anything to do with it in trials, and he’s just not good enough to hide it, you are fairly certain.

The thing is, you aren’t sure you are either.

 

It’s you who slips in the end, because you’ve been thinking about _it_ so much that you can’t not bring it into the Drift, because when you think of Raleigh this is one of those nasty, awful things that rises to the top of your mind now—you’ve been stressing about it so much, for so long (even if you’ve never been nervous about it it’s a little more pressure than you need) that it’s hard to keep it down for long.  You are about to lock down into the Drift and start the sim and the last memory that hits you (the both of you, _fuck_ ) is kissing Raleigh when he was sixteen—a memory Raleigh has too, but for you it comes heavily layered with how you liked it and wanted it and hated yourself for liking and wanting it, and as the two of you break into the silence, Raleigh chokes out, “Yance?”

“LOCCENT,” you say, instead of answering, pressing the comm button and trying to quell your rising nausea about the fact that he _knows_ , even if he doesn’t know everything.  “Gipsy Danger, ready for drop.”

You haven’t been in Gipsy Danger yet.  She isn’t finished. You haven’t even seen her. You think about this as hard as possible so Raleigh won’t shove any of his questions into your head.

You finish the sim as fast as humanly possible, and the second they crack the spine piece of the drivesuit, you rip off the other plates and leave before your brother can say anything to you, even though you can feel him wanting to through the ghost Drift.

All you can think about for the rest of the day is how his eyes were wide and his words stuck in his throat when you transplanted your sickness into his brain.

You feel his horror, low-key and constant, through the ghost Drift for hours.

You think you know what horrifies him.

It horrifies you too.

 

You avoid Raleigh for as long as you can.

You avoid the conversation.

You are a coward, but you can’t bear to lose him like this.

 

Because you know your brother so well you manage to avoid him for three days.  Because he knows you so well, you do not make it past your first waking hour of the fourth before he finds you.

He corners you coming out of Tendo’s room, where you’ve been sleeping on the floor for the past two nights, and grabs you by the collar before you even know he’s there, slams you into the wall by the stairs.  “Stop fucking leaving me,” he growls, and smashes his mouth into yours, kisses you so hard you can barely breathe, like he’s sucking the air out of your lungs.

He doesn’t pull back far before he kisses you again, just far enough for you to see his wild eyes. Just long enough to realize what he said before he put his mouth on yours.

You shove him back.

This is your fault, Yancy Becket.

He stumbles, face crumpling from furious desperation to something that looks a little like heartbreak, and every big-brother instinct you have screams that you’ve fucked up. You reach forwards for him again automatically, because you might be fifty shades of fucked up and you might have fucked him up too and you might still be fucking him up and nothing’s all right, but you need to _take care of him_ and you’re realizing how selfish you’ve been for the last little while, worrying about you and your feelings when you were pushing him to this point without realizing it.

You pull him into your chest, wrap your arms around him, teenage-skinny still and just starting to fill out in the sort of heavy muscle testosterone will give him soon. “You don’t have to do that to make me stay,” you say quietly, into his hair.  “’m sorry, kiddo, I didn’t know you thought—”

“You would if you _listened to me_ , Yancy,” he snaps, even though he’s relaxing into your arms. The incongruity of the tone of his voice and the language of his body strike him all at once and he pulls away almost violently.  “Fuck, wanted you since I was fifteen and you won’t even be in a room with me anymore even though I know you want m—”

You cut him off by putting a hand over his mouth.  “I’m not going to touch you like that, Raleigh.  I’d never make you.”

“Why the fuck not?” he spits, but his voice is cracking with fear and his hands are tightening around your arms like you’re going to leave him again.  “And you can’t _make_ me do anything. I’m _eighteen_ , Yancy, I know what I want.”

He’s eighteen.

Your little brother is eighteen and you’re twenty-one and god help you, you want him. He’s eighteen. He’s _eighteen_. “I won’t run away anymore,” you say, instead of _you’re my baby brother_ , instead of _I can’t_ , instead of _I love you_.

Raleigh’s face is wet against your neck when you pull him back into your arms.

You will never hurt him like this again.

 

Raleigh doesn’t push it, because he’s a good kid.  Just goes back to being your tagalong, and you go back to letting him.  Doesn’t try to kiss you again.  Doesn’t try to touch.  But he does look.

And look, and look. When he doesn’t think you’re looking at him looking.  Bites his lip and stares at your face in profile, and you know you’ve ruined everything because he will never be able to forget that you want him too.  He will never be able to just be what you used to be without thinking about your wrongness.

You drift just fine, though. You keep trying to keep it from him and he keeps trying to find it because he can’t just leave it alone, even if he’s otherwise being very good.  He can’t help it—you know because he apologizes every time he starts to chase a RABIT shaped like himself.  You do not look for yourself in his mind.  You do not want to see if he thinks he still wants you or if he thinks he needs to fuck you to keep you.  You do not need to see how you have failed.

Here’s something Raleigh doesn’t get about you, apparently: you might avoid him, like a coward, when there’s something this big in your head that you never wanted him to see that he can never unsee, but you would never, ever leave him. You would rather take a shot of Blue off a goat with a lime wedge in its mouth than leave your brother alone before he wanted you to go.  If he looked you in the eye and told you he never wanted to see you again you would go without a fight, but until he does that—and you know he won’t—you will live with your guilt and your failure and your temptation for the rest of your life, so you can keep being by his side.

You do not tell him this. You know it would make him feel bad.

Instead, you stay.

You laugh with him at the breakfast table and clap him on the back and let yourself swing your arm around his shoulders, mess up his hair, kiss him on the forehead. You do all these things and you want to do more, but the one job that matters more to you than being a Ranger is being an older brother, so you tell yourself this, many times a day:

 _I will never touch him the way I want to_.

 

Raleigh’s face when he first sees Gipsy is brighter than sunlight, million-watt smile under golden hair, eyes lit up.  You understand. You could choke on how beautiful she is.

You could choke on how beautiful he is, too.

But you’re beginning to get used to that.

 

Raleigh, covered in his own sweat and wearing boxer shorts on the maybe one day of the whole year that Alaska gets over eighty, is not trying to tease you, but you make an excuse to take a shower anyway when you see him lounging around in your room like that, because he makes you short of breath.

 

You flip your brother over your shoulder and pin him to the mat, straddling his waist with your bō pressed against his trachea, and instead of trying to roll you off, trying to get up or fight back, he goes loose under you, staff rolling out of his hand as his muscles relax.

He trusts you so much.

You’re hard against his stomach at the sprawl of him under you.

You don’t deserve his trust.

He’s hard against your ass in his sweatpants.

You scramble off him but he gets up after you and says, “Yancy…” as you’re looking anywhere but his crotch.

“Raleigh,” you say, hoarse.

You want to get on your knees.  You want to kiss him into the wall.  You want to see if he likes having something against his throat while he’s being fucked, or if he was just trying to show you he trusted you. You want a lot of things.

You don’t try any of them.

You tap him in the shoulder with your staff and pretend you’re not still aching when you say, “C’mon, kid.  Let’s go again.”

 _I will never touch him the way I want to_.

 

In the dark of your room, you wake up in a panicked sweat, because your brother, in the bunk under you, is dreaming about Richard telling him Mom was dead.  You drop into his bunk without a second thought before you’re even really awake, jostle him into awareness and pull his quivering shoulders into the circle of your arms, stroking his sweaty hair with one hand.

As he wakes up, before he realizes what’s happening, he presses shaky kisses to your shoulder that you have to pretend don’t burn like a brand.

 

In the Drift Raleigh starts hesitantly trying for more, chasing RABITs when no RABITs exist—or that’s how you think of it, anyhow. Looking for himself. Trying to show you yourself.

You can’t block him out in the Drift, you can only block yourself in, and so when he starts trying to show you how he feels about you, you can only do so much of the proverbial fingers-in-ears nonsense before you have to admit defeat and let him show you.  You expect maybe a shadow of yourself, something about you gone a little bit wrong but he still loves you because of course he does—maybe you’re worried he’ll be afraid, or angry, or hurt, but all you get is… you.

Raleigh doesn’t see a predator or a manipulator or a little fucked-up.  Doesn’t really see you as fucked-up at all, which is a little fucked-up, you think drily, and feel his laughter in your own throat.  You’re not any of the things you were worried about being, at least not to him.

You are something he wants.

Something he _thinks_ he wants.  If you were a monster, you wonder, would he even know, or would he just think of you the same way he does now?  Maybe you are and he just isn’t aware of it.  You wonder, too, if he really can ever know he wants you.  You wish you didn’t have to think about it.

It all feels sincere, your feelings and his, but a Ranger knows better than anyone what sort of tricks the mind can play on you.

You watch yourself ruffle his hair in a memory and he’s thinking about how much he wants to kiss you.

 

You and Raleigh, you’re good at talking.  Good at manning up and apologizing to each other, good at being honest.  If you can’t be honest with each other, who can you be honest with?  But you haven’t been really honest with your little brother since you were seventeen.  You need to think before you talk, but Raleigh doesn’t do the whole thinking before he speaks thing.

“Yance,” he calls from behind you, coming out of the drivesuit room too late to walk with you, but early enough to catch you before you’re out of his reach.  You think about pretending you don’t hear him, but instead you swing around and wait, and he runs to catch up with you the way he always has when you go a little too fast.

“Good run,” you tell him, and his brow furrows.

“Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t push it.

 

Not pushing it is _killing_ Raleigh, and you know because you have to watch it every time you drift, but he’s being good about it, because he’s a good kid.  He wants to _talk_ or he wants to _kiss you_ or he wants to just—sit you down and explain to you that he’s old enough to know what he wants.

You want to kiss him too.  But you don’t.

All of a sudden it is much harder to never touch him the way you want, because he’s practically begging you to do exactly that. He’s not trying to, he’s trying to be good, but your brother has always worn his heart on his sleeve and when you come into the room and he’s already there, he curves towards you subtly, like a flower opening to the sun.  You can feel him deliberately _not_ thinking about you in the shower. And in the Drift you see that the guys he goes home with all have something of yours.  One has your hands.  Another has your slow half-grin.  He thinks one of them has your eyes until he wakes up and sees that they’re more green than grey.  One of them calls him _kid_ and kisses him breathless until he’s sixteen again and in your lap, and you know he’s trying to be good but he’s driving you insane.

You take girls home who have nothing of his. You make them laugh and you make them beg and you give them a good time, all things considered, and you let yourself not be reminded for once of how you have wanted to fuck your little brother for almost five years.

Because you’re not _supposed_ to.  Because you’re trying to do what’s best for him. Because you aren’t sure you can ever be sure that he wants you.

Because you love him, so much it hurts you.

And you _can’t_.

 

You wonder—if you told Tendo you wanted to fuck your little brother, would he hate you?  Would he think you were disgusting?  You wonder if it would be any different if you told the Gages.  If they would understand, because they drift too.

But it wasn’t the Drift, was it?  You were like this before.  You have no excuse.

You don’t go to a therapist even though you sort of want to, because they’d take you away from Raleigh.

Even though, out of everyone in the world, he is the very last one you would ever hurt.

 

“Yancy,” Raleigh whispers, as you’re slipping as quietly as you can into the darkness of the bunks, smelling like someone’s cheap perfume with lipstick branded over your pulse and claw marks down your back. “When I was sixteen, why’d you stop?”

He sounds calm, but you’re careful anyway. “Because you were drunk,” you start, but if that were true you wouldn't have pushed him off the last time he kissed you.  “And you’re my brother.”

You hear his bed rustle and you know he’s turning towards you in the dark.  “Okay, Yance,” he says softly.  “But that’s not why I love you and you know it.”

You are silent, because you think of it as _I want him_ and he thinks of it as _I love you_ and you love him too, you do, but this, more even than being in his head, outlines the differences between you. He doesn’t think of it as _wrong_ quite the same way you do, he thinks of it as part of love, and you wonder why that is.  Was that something else you did wrong raising him?  Or is he right?

“I love you because you’re _here_ , Yance,” he says, and you don’t stop him, and you should, but you’re a little buzzed still and you want to hear it, even though you don’t want to want to hear it. “And if I asked you to quit with me you would even though I know you love it.  And you trip over shit in the mornings on purpose sometimes to make me laugh. You didn’t _make_ me like this. I’m an _adult_ , I can choose.  I _know_ what I want.  And it’s got nothing to do with you being my brother or how much we’ve drunk. So if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but stop worrying about it so much.”

“I can’t, Raleigh,” you tell him again, and climb up to your bunk in the darkness, or try to, but he catches your wrist on the ladder.

“Please tell me why,” he says, and you can’t see his face, but his voice is timid.  “I just want to know, Yancy, promise I won’t ever bring it up again if you don’t want.”

Suddenly you don’t remember.

You do, but nothing you can say does not sound stupid in the face of the fact that Raleigh seems pretty damn sure he’s in love with you. “Go to sleep, kiddo,” you tell him, and lean forwards to kiss his forehead in the dark.

“…yeah,” he replies, sounding tired, if not of the variation on the theme of _tired_ that involves sleep. “Take a shower, Yance. You smell like booze and dick.”

“Good night,” you say, and climb the ladder.

 

Raleigh sleeps shirtless and you stumble out of bed when he wakes you to glare blearily at him.  You have morning wood.  He is disheveled and half-dressed and you could eat him alive.  But you don’t touch even though he sways towards you a little when he sees you’re watching.

You take a cold shower.  You jack yourself off thinking deliberately about the brunette you fucked last week, imagine her breasts against your chest, back to the wall of her shower, legs wrapped around your waist.

No blonde boys.  No pretty smiles.

You are better than that.

 

“Yancy,” Raleigh murmurs.  “Yancy, are you awake?”

“Yeah, kiddo,” you tell him.  “For about thirty more seconds.”

“Can I sleep with you?  Nothing—you know, I just—miss it.”

You want to pretend you don’t miss it too, but you do. So you open your arms in the dark and he climbs up the ladder even though he couldn’t see you moving, and slots himself carefully into your arms, not touching you any more than you let him touch you.

You want to say _good boy_ but you say, “Good night, kiddo,” instead.

 

You finally get to drop in Gipsy and that’s what breaks you. You spend a few hours walking around in the bay, getting a feel for it, and when you get out you have to help him get the relay gel out of his hair, because he keeps missing bits, and you’re being objective, you really are, you’re being very certain not to touch anything but his hair and shoulders, certain not to get in under the water with him.

Then you clap him on the back and tell him, “Done, bro,” in the most friendly, not-turned-on tone you can manage, and he whirls around, stops you from retreating with a hand on your wrist.

His eyes are wild.  The stretch of his mouth is desperate.  You need to kiss it like you need to breathe.  You lean forwards a little before you realize what you’re doing and move back and his voice is hoarse and cracking when he pulls on your wrist again. “Yancy,” he says. “Yancy, _please_ ,” and then he recoils like he’s been burned and drops his gaze and chokes out, “…sorry, sorry.  I won’t—not again.”

Your control snaps, all those times you looked in the mirror and said _I will never touch him the way I want to_.  “Raleigh,” you say.  “Look at me, kid.”

He does.  He looks embarrassed and stressed and sad and guilty and he was never supposed to have had any of this guilt, it was supposed to be yours to bear.  “Yeah?” he replies, voice barely there.

“I love you more than anything on the planet, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he says again, and looks away once more.

“You’re my dumbass little brother and you’re always going to be.”

“I need to shower, man,” he tells you, sounding a little bitter.

“Okay,” you tell him, and reach in to ruffle his hair again. “But you know I’d do anything for you.”

He looks up and you can tell he gets it, what you’re offering. For a moment there is naked want on his face, a _yes_ hovering on his tongue.  But then he smiles like it hurts him to do it.  “Don’t want it to be for me, Yance,” he says, simply.

You love him for that.  But you hate that you couldn’t even give yourself the temporary out of telling yourself you were doing it for Raleigh.

“’m always gonna be here, kiddo,” you tell him, and bend in to kiss his forehead even though it gets your hair wet.  “No matter what, okay?”

“Love you, Yancy,” he says, and turns his face away from you until you leave. 

 

The next time you drift you don’t hide anything.

All those times you looked at him and wanted to kiss him. The way it felt right to you every time you woke up and he was lying against your shoulder smiling at you. The guilt and the pain and just to be certain he doesn’t get anything wrong, you let him catch a look at all your love, too.

(He’s sixteen and squirming in your lap.

He’s eighteen and hooked into the harness on your left.)

He doesn’t look at you afterwards in the drivesuit room and your stomach sinks, because you’re not ghosting today and you _can’t tell_ why he won’t.

“Raleigh,” you call after him, but he doesn’t turn around at the end of the hall.

His retreating back is an inevitability, not a pain.

Your chest is hollow.

 

You are woken up by a warm weight in the dark curling into your arms, and automatically you put them around your brother’s waist, breathe deeply with your nose buried in his sweaty hair.  You decide to try to pretend nothing happened.  “Ugh, Rals, you’re rank.  What the hell were you doing?”

“Working out,” he says.  “I make you miserable.”

“No, you don’t,” you tell him without thinking.

“I do.  I saw it.”

“No, baby,” you reassure him, and the endearment just slips out, but that’s fine, because you feel him wanting more as soon as it’s out of your lips, his mouth opening wet against your neck on a choked noise. “I haven’t done jack shit anything for you that I wasn’t happy to do.  You’re my little brother, it’s my jo—”

“I’m not your job,” he says, and leans back away from you. “And you’re my brother, but there’s worse shit out there, isn’t there?”

There is.  You laugh. “Who are you trying to convince?”

“Help me get the relay gel out of my hair,” he says.

He pulls you into the shower with him fully clothed and asks you quickly before he drops to his knees if you’re going to regret this tomorrow.

You tell him, “No, I’ve made my decision,” and then he peels your wet pants off your body and sucks you off.

You take him back to bed and lay him down and kiss him soft while you stroke him hard until he’s hitching little moans into your mouth and clinging to your neck.  Then you watch him drift off to sleep with his cheek squished against your upper arm and his hair drying at funny angles over your skin.

You kiss his forehead and he barely stirs.

You do not repeat your mantra.

You think about telling him to run.

 

He wakes you up in the morning by kissing your chest until you wake up, and you almost panic for the first time in your life, lying in bed with him, because you said you wouldn’t but you did and you were not strong enough and you’ve corrupted him and he is everything good that’s ever happened to you.

But then, when he sees that you’ve cracked your eyes open, he smiles like you’ve personally brought him back a star from the sky.

And your burgeoning self-hatred fades, fast.

You let him kiss you.

 

You wonder, if you told Tendo you were fucking your brother, would he report you?  You wonder what will happen if it keeps happening.  You wonder, can you possibly expect this to last?  You’ve had one real relationship in your whole life and it was in high school and now you’re _fucking your brother_.  What happens if you “break up”?  What happens if he doesn’t want you anymore?  Will you go right back to the purgatory of wanting him but never touching? Should you ever have touched at all?

Raleigh smiles all day.

And pulls you into his bed at night, just to sleep on your chest.

 

“Yancy,” he asks you a few days later, “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah, kid,” you answer, and he climbs into your lap, like he’s sixteen again, and curls up there, kissing you lazy and slow over and over again until you’re half-hard against his ass.  When he pulls back, you tighten your arms a little, and he grins, lips swollen and cheeks flushed and eyes so bright you could drown in them. “God, you’re beautiful,” you say, without thinking about it, and he goes bright red and tucks his face into your neck until the blush passes.

“Yance,” he protests, and you kiss his hair and stroke your hand down his back, feeling the switch flip from turned-on to brotherly.

“Raleigh,” you say, after you’ve let him relax into your arms again. “We need to talk.”

He stiffens.  “Yancy—”

He says your name a lot.

You kind of like that.

“No, kid,” you cut him off.  “Not that kind of talk.”  You wait until he’s relaxing again, a little, to continue.  “Just want you to know that if you ever want this to stop, you just tell me.  No questions, won’t get angry, I promise.  It’ll just stop and we’ll go right back to how it was before, all right?”

“Yeah,” he says, sighing.  “You, too.  But I’m not gonna, Yancy. I’ve wanted this forever.”

Maybe he has.  Maybe you’re trying to be okay with it because it seems to make him happy. Maybe it’s all true and he’s going to get to be happy in secret ‘til death do you part or whatever. It doesn’t matter. You need to give him this out. You ruffle his hair. “Tell you what, kid. Pick a word.”

“Like a safeword?”

“Yeah, but not for sex.  For this.  That way you don’t have to say anything but that and it doesn’t have to be some big nervous thing.”

He, unlike you, gets anxious.  Over a lot of things, but mostly over you.

He laughs.  He’s gorgeous. “Damn, safewording out of a relationship?  Brutal, Yance.”

“Just pick one, you little punk,” you say, and bite his ear a little.

Might be a relationship, but it’s one where he’s never going to get to hold hands in public with you or get married or have kids or even tell anyone about.  You’re cheating him out of a lot of the life you always hoped he’d have, but it looks like that’s not the one he wants.

You feel selfish anyway, keeping him to yourself.

 

Raleigh hints and hints and you don’t give it to him until finally he just straight-out says, “Fuck me.”

You tell him he can do you instead if he wants, and he shrugs and says, “Later,” like he thinks you’re trying to avoid something you’ve wanted to do for five fucking years.

And, okay, maybe you are.

Because he can turn back from some kisses and sleeping together and a blowjob and a handjob one time, but this feels more permanent. Intellectually, you know it’s not, but in reality, it doesn’t fucking matter.  “Yeah,” you say, unsure, and sit down to let him get back into your lap, one of his favourite positions, it seems.

“Like this,” he tells you.

You open him up as carefully as you can with him straddling your hips and he doesn’t even let you get up to take your pants off before he just pulls your dick out and sinks down slow, letting out a soft noise and gripping your shoulders tighter.  Then he tries to ride you fast, but you take him by the hips and don’t let him, pull him close to you and kiss him until he’s barely rocking against you, panting into your mouth.

He helps you find an angle where you’re rubbing into his prostate and then you just keep him there slow and gentle until he’s coming over your stomach, going limp around you.  “Yancy,” he says.  “Yancy, Yancy, Yancy.”

Like he’s praying.

You stroke his hair until he stops trembling even though you’re aching for it.  “Shh, sweetheart.”

 

He finds his way into your bed up the ladder and rolls into your arms, and you can feel his brilliant smile pressed into your neck with his cold nose.  “’night, kiddo,” you slur, half-awake.

He whispers, “Love you, Yancy,” and then he burrows closer.

You do not think you could love him any more than this.

 

You don’t start kisses.  You let him do it.  You let him pull you into the shower, too, crawl into your bed or tug you into his. It’s not that you don’t want to, but… but.

If _you_ start it maybe you made him.  If _he_ starts it probably he wanted it.

You still worry, sometimes, if you would ever know if he didn’t want you.  There are reasons this shit is forbidden—power plays and coercion, for two.  And you’re not in it for power or to bend him to your will or because you can’t get it anywhere else, you’re in it because he’s been the centre of your world since he was eighteen.

 _That_ was probably the problem.

 

When Raleigh and Jaz were little and they used to be afraid of monsters under the bed you would make up stories about how the monsters weren’t really monsters, just regular old creatures who got grumpy without sleep and fought with their wives and had work stress and tax problems. How if they were really still scared of the not-monsters they could simply leave a pillow under the bed and the not-monsters would be scared off.

A pillow was just the first thing you saw lying around when Jaz was still scared after you humanized her terrors.  Feathers and scratchy orange cloth made into a guardian with the power of her older brother’s words.

Raleigh doesn’t have nightmares when he’s sleeping on your chest.

You are Yancy Becket and you are still keeping the monsters at bay.

 

After Yamarashi you unhook and cross the pod, ripping off your helmet, to take Raleigh’s face in your hands and kiss him through his, pressing him into the wall.  You can feel when his knees go a little weak, because he starts hanging on you like you’re his anchor. “Yancy,” he gasps when you have to pull back to breathe.  “Yancy, we killed it.”

You lift him by the waist, drivesuit and all, and spin him around, then kiss him breathless again, pulling back and pressing the button to shut his helmet as the techs open the latch.

Later, you press him into his mattress and fuck him until you feel like you’re drifting again.

 

If Mom ever even knew you’d thought about touching Raleigh anything like this she’d have beaten your ass, and you’d have deserved it, you muse. You wonder if she can see you now. If she’s throwing up in heaven, if there is such a place.  You wonder, would this land you in hell, if that existed too?

Jazmine doesn’t know.

You haven’t told her, and you know for damn skippy Raleigh hasn’t either.

You are pretty sure she would fly over here and punch you. You are pretty sure if this ever hit the press, forget just losing your job, you’d be not only brought up on as many kinds of criminal charges as they could slap you with, but also that you would probably get some deadly disease in the mail before your trial ever came around, for touching America’s baby wrong.

You might be better in the saddle, but Raleigh’s better for the cams, and everyone, _everyone_ loves him.

You love him too.

But if someone gets in trouble for this it’s going to be you.

You are older.

You should have known better.

The truth is you did know better.  You still know better.  But you’re bad at saying no to Raleigh and when he snuggles into your arms you don't want to.

 

“Yancy?” Raleigh asks you, still breathless, post-coital and lying against your chest with his ear pressed to your heartbeat.

“Mmn?”

“Did you ever want kids?”

“Why, did you forget to take your birth control?”

He punches you in the shoulder, but he’s orgasm-weak and cuddly more than he is menacing.  “No, I just was thinking, you know, _we_ can’t, and if you wanted them you’d have t—”

“Shh,” you cut him off.  “No, I don’t.  Don’t worry about that now, okay, kiddo?  We got bigger fish to fry than my biological clock ticking.”

“I want to be able to kiss you in public,” he murmurs.

You can’t ever give him that.  You stroke through his sweaty hair, making it stand all on end, and kiss his temple.  “You say the word, Raleigh, and you can go find someone who can do that with you.”

You are selfish to make him start everything. You are selfish to make him end it too. He shoves you away and turns over, away from you, but then scoots back into your body until you sling an arm over his waist and pull him close.  “No,” he says.

You kiss the back of his neck.

You are so selfish.

 

In the mornings your little brother shines brighter than the fucking sun and it is the time of day you love him least.  He rolls out of your arms and then rips the covers off, because he is _cruel_ , kisses you hard and then tries to tug you out of bed, and really, you’re getting mixed signals with this.

Sometimes you wonder why he’s so eager to get out of bed every morning.  Is it because he hates sleep or because he loves being awake?

He grins at you as you’re trying to remember which boot goes on which foot, bouncing on the balls of his feet.  “Where’s the party, kid?” you ask, and he laughs.

He’s gorgeous when he laughs.

“There’s a party?”

“I mean why you’re so excited to be awake.”

He just gestures around like it’s obvious and gives you that heart-melting smile once more.

 

Raleigh’s better with press than you are, so you mostly flirt with reporters in lieu of talking too much.  You’re not into the whole hero thing quite the same way he is—not that you don’t appreciate the benefits of it, but describing each kill like the two of you undertook the _Odyssey_ to make it happen sits wrong with you. It’s a job.  You’re willing to be celebrated for your hard work. The glory’s cool. But even if you feel like a superhero in Gipsy, outside her the veneration seems… out of place. Like you’re some sort of perfect face to slap on posters, the boy girls would die to bring home. Golden boy.  Captain fucking America.

When in reality, you and your little brother limp back to your room to wash the gel off and he wraps his arms around your neck and pulls you backwards into the shower with him, pressed up against you with his muscles smooth under his skin and his hands running over your back, marking you with thin red lines.

And you let him.

You wonder if that reporter would have wanted your dick so bad if she knew where you liked putting it.

Raleigh pants into your mouth.  Raleigh rubs up against your hip like he’s desperate. Raleigh _begs_ for your hands on him.  Raleigh is so, so fucking sweet, and you are a sick fuck.  He’s a fucking angel, he’s so good, and he’s claiming you, scoring those lines down your back—he’s jealous, you can tell. Of that reporter, with her short skirt and her breasts spilling out of her top, just the way you used to like your girls.  You can feel it when his hand slides into your hair and pulls your head back. When his mouth burns your throat. You don’t deserve his jealousy.

You get down on your knees and pray.

 

After the next time you drift you see his jealousy first-hand and he sees your guilt, and he storms off without speaking a word to you, the second they’ve cracked the seal on his drivesuit.  You find him in the gym working off the Drift hangover by himself, and he doesn’t have to look at you to know you’re there.  “You said,” he says, hitting the bag, “you weren’t,” he hits it again, “going to,” his knuckles are white, going hot, angry red, “regret it.”

“I don’t,” you tell him.

“You’re lying,” he replies.  “Don’t do anything you don’t want, Yancy.”

“I want you,” you say.

You have never said it that way before.

He looks at you and his eyes are very, very clear blue. His mouth is a flat line, but it curves down, up, down again as you’re watching.  He doesn’t smile.  He does look a little pleased.  Then he turns around and holds out his arms.

You step forwards.  “Are you going to regret this?” he asks.

“No,” you say, and step forwards again.  “But I won’t promise you I’m never gonna feel guilty.”

“Okay,” Raleigh says, and walks into your arms just the way he always does when he gets home if you’re there first.  “Okay.”

You’re in public.

You can only hug him.

 

You look in the mirror, halfway through brushing shaving cream over your jaw.

You are Yancy Becket.

Your hair is messed the fuck up, just the way it always is in the morning.  You are naked, your body is strapped with muscle—no more skinny boy in ratty jeans. You don’t really need to shave, but you prefer to be as clean-cut as possible, so you still do this every morning.

You look bleary.  Barely awake.

You do not look like a predator.  You wonder what a predator looks like.

Raleigh walks into the bathroom and slips up behind you to put his hands around your waist and kiss your shoulder and then rest his chin against it, grinning bright.  You think that smile is tattooed into your heart.

You switch hands on your razor and raise your now-free hand to trace your thumb across his lips, navigating in the mirror. “Love you, kiddo,” you tell him.

His smile grows.  It’s blinding.

You don’t feel like a predator, either.

You feel like you’re in love.

 

You would give him anything he wanted in bed, but what he likes best is this.

When you roll him into the bunk and make love to him gentle and easy.  He likes it other ways, too, but in the end this is what it comes down to—you like showing him how much you love him and he likes being loved.

The first time you tell him what a good boy he is he practically spasms under you, scrambling to pull you closer before he comes.

Now you have your hands on his hips and he’s rocking down against you and you are telling him _fuck, you’re gorgeous_ and _god, you’re good, you’re so fucking good, sweetheart_ and _keep going, baby, you’re almost there, I can feel you_.  He has to duck his head to avoid hitting it against the bottom of your bunk, but he’s flushed clear pink down to his chest and his eyes are hazy in the dark, and he is so, so beautiful, trying to go faster but unable to because your hands on his hips are teaching him restraint.

You would give him _anything_.

 

Raleigh dances with a girl in a bar who is wearing a tight, bright red dress, his hands low on her back, almost resting over the top curve of her ass, his lips close to his neck, but he’s looking at you.  You are standing by the bar with a drink hanging from your fingers, and you are looking back at him and _wanting_.

You are not a Neanderthal.  You are not a possessive asshole.  Not over Raleigh.  Raleigh can do whatever the fuck he wants, with whoever, and you will never, never object, because he is your _little brother_.

He is your lover, too, but that is less important to you.

If he wanted a girl, you would not stand between them. Someone he could be public with. Have kids and a life and a house. You would not ever keep him from that. So you smile at him across the room and trace the dark fall of her hair over her back with your eyes, thinking that he picked a cute one.

You don’t remember the last time you fucked a girl.

 

“Please,” Raleigh begs.  “Please, Yancy, please, I need you.”

“Shh, sweetheart,” you tell him, and drop a kiss on his forehead. “I’m right here.”

Sometimes he gets like this after Drifts.  Desperate.  Needy. It’s beautiful. “Yancy,” he whispers, looking at you like you’re the sun.

You close his eyelids and drop a kiss on each one, holding them closed by his lashes.  “Raleigh, just trust me, all right?  I’m gonna give you everything.”

He opens his eyes again and looks at peace.

 

You don’t touch him for weeks after Naomi Solokov. You don’t ever want to have taken what he might have thought was a real future away from him, and even though his accusation is ridiculous, you understand why he’s angry. You can’t bring yourself to touch him when he wanted someone else because he _should_ have that chance, and you _took it_.

(You took it maybe because you were jealous. You took it maybe because you wanted that chance, too, or because you knew you never had it. You took it to see if you really loved him.  If you were still normal. You don’t know. It doesn’t matter.)

He crawls into your bunk late a few weeks after it and doesn’t ask for your hands on him, just curls into your side and tucks his face away in your neck.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” you tell him, voice hoarse. You don’t want to think about why.

“It’s okay, Yancy,” he murmurs.

It’s not.

 

You and Raleigh and Illisapie Flint go to an elementary school in Washington to give a talk about the war, and to get some good publicity for the PPDC.  It’s not in your script, but when the kids go to lunch, you go with them.  Raleigh eats with a group of sixth-graders who ask him incessant questions, Illisapie, who’s bad with kids but good with a pencil, draws cartoons of kaiju for a bunch of the teachers, and you surround yourself with kindergarteners, because you’re good with _little_ little kids.

A pair of twins ask if it’s fun being a pilot.

You’re supposed to be a propaganda machine right now, but it still strikes you as incredibly fucking wrong to tout the benefits of being a soldier to a couple of children.  But then again, it also feels wrong to lie.  “Yeah,” you say.  “Me’n’Raleigh love it.”

“Raleigh _and I_ ,” the boy sitting to your right says.

“Cookie for the genius?” You ask him, and hand yours over. You play tag with the kids at recess, you and Raleigh, while Illisapie is talking to the principal. You run slow so they can catch you.

Raleigh is laughing.

He looks _right_ with a herd of kids at his heels.

You wonder if he’ll ever want his own, even though you told him not to worry about it.

 

You ask him once, "Hey, Raleigh, d'you think maybe we should... call it quits on this?"

He turns around and looks at you like you've stuck a knife into his chest, and then he looks at your face and his jaw hardens.  "You regretting it, Yancy?"

Maybe you are a little.

But you say, "No."

He doesn't believe you.  He walks up to you and kisses you hard and desperate and then walks away.  "I want it, Yancy.  I haven't stopped."

"Tell me," you say softly, and he stops at the door to turn back again.

"Tell you what?"

"When you do."

"Fuck," Raleigh says, and the door slams behind him.

 

"I'm not fucking leaving," he says when he shoves you into the post of your bunk, one hand tangled in your dog tags and the other resting on your shoulder.  "I'm not fucking leaving and you can't leave me, Yancy, okay?"

"I wouldn't," you tell him, and that's the truth.

He presses forwards into your arms and hides his face against your shoulder.

"I would never," you say.

"Yeah," he whispers into your skin.

 

Raleigh has a nightmare and wakes shaking. When you ask him what’s up he says, “I dreamed about Mom dying.”

You can’t tell him it’s not real, because it was. You stroke his hair. “’s over, kiddo.” He tucks his face into your neck and goes silent, so you keep talking.  He needs to hear your voice.  “I got you. I always do.”

“Yancy,” he says, after a while.  “If I died, what would you do?”

“You’re not gonna die,” you tell him.  “I’m not gonna let you.”

“But if I did—”

“Go to sleep, Rals.  I’m right here.  You’re safe.”

If he died you’d be fucking lost.

 

“You’re beautiful,” you tell Raleigh, and his ears flush pink.

“I know, you keep telling me,” he says.

“Why shouldn’t I tell my boy the truth?” you ask him, and his flush goes darker.  “Yeah, Raleigh,” you say. “My boy.  Look at you.”  Your thumb runs over the red painting his cheekbone.  “You’re fucking gorgeous.  Smile for me, baby.”

He does, like he can’t help it, and it lights up his face. “Yance—”

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” You take his face in your hands and lean forward and place a kiss on his forehead.

He keeps smiling.  He curls up in your lap.  “I’m glad we got to do this,” he whispers.

You’re glad, too.

 

You’re not perfect, you and Raleigh.  You fight—a lot, sometimes—and you don’t always know which role you’re playing all the time, whether you’re supposed to be his best friend or his boyfriend or his brother.  You occasionally solve problems by punching each other and sometimes you’re still guilty about letting yourself have this.

You’re not perfect.

But you can’t imagine ever loving anyone better than you love Raleigh.

 

 Someday, when the war is over, you are going to take your brother home.  You are going to buy a cheap, shitty car that can barely make it to where you’re going to go and you’re going to build him a house in the middle of fucking nowhere, Alaska, where the reporters can’t find you, and after that you’re going to spend weekends fixing the car and maybe, once the dust has settled a little, buy him a border collie.

Maybe two.

To make up for how he never got to have a puppy when he was a kid. Something that’d go running in the mornings with him.

Maybe you’ll write a book.  Work from home somehow, be a nobody again.  Only this time you won’t have to have two jobs and no life.

Raleigh’d hate it, though.  You’d need to be close enough to a town that he could get a job there or something.  Maybe go to school. See people.

You’re going to kiss him in front of the fire. Hit him with snowballs in the middle of winter.  Let him sleep against your shoulder and do that cute thing where he burrows into the crook of your neck and smiles.  Get him in your lap on the couch and kiss him breathless.

In your arms, Raleigh turns over and sneaks his arms around your waist, presses in closer.

You kiss his hair and his eyes flutter shut, mouth curling up.

You’re going to take him home, after the kaiju are gone.

You’re going to make him _happy_.

When it’s over.

 

 -----

 

You are Raleigh Becket.

You wearing black at your brother’s funeral and the casket at the front of the room is empty.  You were supposed to give a eulogy but you didn’t write one.  So Tendo is talking about the man your brother was and there is no ground under your feet.

His epitaph reads _Son and Brother_.

You are neither, anymore.

You are alone.


End file.
